01 Oct The future of corporate communications

Last week was a week full of interesting insights on the future of corporate communications.

Innovation Day in Munich

At the Innovation Day in Munich Professor Juergen Schmidhuber, the father of modern artificial intelligence, shared his view on how much AI will fundamentally change our work, economy and society. Without any doubt, he expects AI to make a giant leap within the next 10-15 years due to increasing computing capacities and thus, at the very least, be able to keep up with human intelligence.

Former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel followed seamlessly and formulated the major challenges of these fundamental transformation for the European Union. Germany would be well advised to finally deal with the problems relevant to the future and the government would have to help drive critical infrastructure projects forward.

At the CMO Award Ceremony in the evening (which was won by Hornbach), Gabor Steingart provocatively summarized the dilemma of many communication departments: God gave us two ears and only one mouth for good reasons – because we should talk less and listen more. This is why he advised all the communication managers at the event to perhaps hire also a “company listener” instead of spokespersons only.

Sigmar Gabriel, former Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber, Director at the Dalle Molle Institute for AI Research

Gabor Steingart, journalist, author and former chief editor of the Handelsblatt

Sigmar Gabriel, former Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber, Director at the Dalle Molle Institute for AI Research

Gabor Steingart, journalist, author and former chief editor of the Handelsblatt

KOMMUNIKATIONSKONGRESS IN BERLIN

It was no less exciting at the Kommunikationskongress 2018 in Berlin. Change and transformation have fully gripped the communications industry. Our Managing Partner, Dr. Niklas Schaffmeister, hit the spot with his talk about “Corporate Communication 2.0”. The bottom line: The pressure for adaptation has become massive in many communication departments because corporate communications has changed only slowly in the past 120 years since the first-ever press release was issued. He identified three main areas of action: new and more flexible organizational structures, smart content governance models that clarify roles and responsibilities, as well as digital tools and editorial systems that simplify collaboration significantly. Usually it’s not about building an oversized traditional newsroom, but a more flexible and efficient model: the virtual newsroom or “newsroom light”.